


Angels We Have Heard On High

by thewatsonbeekeepers



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Drabble Collection, M/M, Oblivious, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 15,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28298721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewatsonbeekeepers/pseuds/thewatsonbeekeepers
Summary: After Mary's death, Sherlock and John come to terms with their feelings for each other as they live together in Baker Street.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23
Collections: 2020 New Years Fic Exchange





	1. Tis the Season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [standbygo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/gifts).



> A Secret Santa assignment for 2020! Chapter 18 is inspired by a work of fanart but I can't find the artist, so I apologise for that! If anyone knows who, please do let me know and I'll amend.

It was the season.

John’s first Christmas without Mary. Rosie’s first Christmas at all. Sherlock had been marking off the days in his mental calendar, knowing that this day would come and all of the trappings associated with it. ‘Tis the season. Trees. Decorations. Advent calendars, though he supposed Rosie was too small for a chocolate one. He wondered whether she should have a picture one, although John was not particularly religious; she had been baptised, after all.   
He wondered whether John had thought of any of this. After Mary had died, John had moved back in to Baker Street; it had taken a few weeks, but he had realised that he was unable to cope on his own. It had been a quiet move back in; they had not really discussed it, how long it would go on. Sherlock preferred it that way. Subdued and reticent though John was now, it meant that he could see these days with him as stretching ahead into infinity, although in his heart he understood that they would not. Rosie would grow, and would outgrow the room she shared with her father. They would move out and on whilst Sherlock stayed at Baker Street.  
But this year was her first Christmas, and Sherlock wanted that to be special for her.   
He had consulted Mrs. Hudson, who had foisted a box of decorations on him that she normally put up around both flats whether he asked for them or not. She said that her back was too bad this year, and so could he do it, but he suspected that was not true. Nevertheless, she was nearing eighty; it would have been churlish to refuse. 

Rosie gurgled at him as he placed them around the room; the ornamental crib, the fake holly, the fir cones and coloured candles. He could not bring himself to defile the workspace that was the kitchen with them, but the sitting room felt very spruce by the time he had finished with it. He toyed with placing some in John’s room, for Rosie, but he had not been in there since John moved back in. There were never any boundaries before the fall; now, with John grieving, it felt like a private space, closed off to Sherlock. So he left it.

He heard John unlock the door of 221 down below, coming in from the surgery, and suddenly Sherlock’s heart was in his mouth. Sherlock had always been vocal about his hatred for Christmas. John would think something was wrong, that he was overcompensating for Mary’s death – which he was – or trying somehow to muscle in on Rosie’s first Christmas, Rosie and John’s first Christmas together, to make it a Rosie, John and Sherlock Christmas. Maybe he was doing that too. He panicked, and as he heard John ascend the seventeen steps to Baker Street he made a rush to the mantelpiece, unhooking some of the ornamental holly just as John walked through the sitting room door. He felt heat rising in his face as John stood dead still, staring at him holding a piece of verdant plastic, disbelieving.

“It’s her first Christmas… and I thought – Mrs. Hudson said”-

A soft grin was spreading over John’s face. “You did this?”

The excuse about Mrs. Hudson suddenly felt paltry, not to mention unnecessary. Sherlock nodded, desperately aware of the colour in his cheeks. “For Rosie,” he added belatedly, hurriedly.

“You mad bastard. You hate Christmas.”

Yet there was affection in John’s eyes, real affection, the first genuine, untainted amiability towards anyone that Sherlock had seen in him since Mary’s death. The sentiment was echoed in Sherlock’s own as John went to pick up his daughter, cooing at her as he carried her to each decoration one by one, introducing every character in the crib to the blissfully uncomprehending infant. Sherlock quietly hooked the holly back onto the mantle. Perhaps he would do Christmas this year after all.


	2. Bells

The church bells rang out their harsh knell into the bracing December air. Sherlock stood outside the church gates, waiting.

The second of December had been Mary’s birthday, and although John did not attend church, except for Christmas and Easter – it’s what people do, Sherlock ¬– he had made an exception for today. He and Rosie had gone to visit Mary’s headstone that morning, followed by a short Mass. Rosie was too young to understand, of course, but it was important that she did. The second of December would be an important day in her life.

Sherlock had not known whether he should go or not. John no longer blamed him for Mary’s death, or at least not except in his darkest moments, or else John would not be back in Baker Street. Yet somehow Sherlock felt that he would be intruding on John’s very private grief. John was not just grieving his wife, although he certainly was doing that; he was also grieving the life that he and Mary had seen, stretching ahead of them into forever, the family that they had just begun to build.   
Sherlock was not a part of that life; Sherlock knew that he was a reminder that those things could never be. And so Sherlock hung back, claiming to be busy, although he knew that John knew he was not. He had said he would see them at the gates to the cemetery. And here he was, collar up against the biting wind, scarf firmly tucked into his coat, waiting.

Despite John having been at Baker Street for several months now, they had not found a rhythm like they used to. This was down to Rosie, Sherlock supposed. Before, Sherlock and John had been a unit, not a romantic one, but a unit nevertheless. Now, so many years later, John and Rosie were a family unit, and Sherlock was – what? He did not know. He loved Rosie with all his heart, more than he had ever imagined he would, but was careful with his affection when John was around. He did not want to seem as though he was usurping a role that was not his.

Also, he knew that one day John and Rosie would leave. It was better not to get too attached. For Sherlock, that bridge had long been crossed, but he would rather that Rosie did not experience any separation trauma when the inevitable came.

He thought back to the Christmas decorations he had placed around the flat the previous afternoon. In the glow of the fire, the room had seemed like a home for the first time in many years, lit up not only by the wintery flames but by John’s laughter, the first time he had laughed in months. The decorations felt premature now, thinking about the sombreness of the day. He hadn’t considered that. 

He had not forgotten the importance of the day, exactly, but he had not imagined it like this. In his mind’s eye, he had seen himself accompanying John and Rosie to the church, holding Rosie and soothing her to give John the space to mourn and even pray. He did not think Mary would have minded that. And then, perhaps, on the cab ride home, placing his hand on John’s, giving him a touch of warmth, letting him know that it would all be okay. That had been his childish fantasy. He hoped that Mary would not have minded that, either. He had always suspected that she had known.

But instead, that morning, seeing John swaddle Rosie to protect her against the cold, the intimacy of that father and daughter moment, a panic had set in to the pit of his stomach and he had fumbled for an excuse. Some moments were too precious to be spoiled. And it was a time, after all, for Mary. He had all Christmas with them; and if John ever needed Sherlock, he must have known that he was always there.

The great wooden doors to the stone church swung open as the muffled sound of the organ opened out into a swell, filling the icy air, and Sherlock saw John and Rosie exiting. John’s eyes met his with a sad smile, thanking him for being there. They did not need to say anything. Sherlock took a hold of the pram and the two of them began the long walk home.


	3. Chilly

John had first moved out of the flat he had once shared with Mary because of the cold.

When he looked back, of course, that was not the real reason. The flat had too many memories; everywhere he looked, he could not help but see Mary’s shape, just out of reach, in the corner of his eye. He had thought that was normal, but although he still saw her sometimes, leaving the flat had helped. She was no longer omnipresent. He had not wanted to raise Rosie in a home that constricted his chest, that made him feel like he couldn’t breathe when he walked into the nursery that he had painted with her. With Mary. He had not wanted that.

But at the time, John had not realised any of this. He had simply said that it was chilly, that the heating didn’t work properly and that there was no double-glazing, and Mrs. Hudson had said that that was no fit way to raise a child and suddenly he had moved back in with Sherlock. 

Now December was setting in in Baker Street. Christmas was a reminder to John that time was passing; Rosie was nearly one, and John had realised when he saw the first Christmas tree on Oxford Street in the middle of November that Rosie needed a home. Baker Street had been supposed to be a stop gap, but John had got comfortable. He had promised himself that day that Rosie’s next Christmas would be in a real home, and that evening had spent hours on property sites, trawling through houses that would be fit to raise a child in.

Money was no object. Mary had left him plenty, something that John struggled to get his head around. He did not like to think of how that money had been earned. But he had it nevertheless, and felt no guilt in spending it on his daughter. Yet with every click on yet another property, John felt a dull pang in the pit of his stomach. He did not really want to leave Baker Street. He had not had a proper home before Baker Street; his childhood house could hardly be called a home, and the military that he had fled to as soon as he could was not a stable household either. Baker Street was the first home he had, and he was reluctant to let go of that. Part of it, he knew, was that he did not trust his luck to build another. When they had bought their flat, he had trusted Mary’s homemaking skills; his sense of belonging was much more fragile. He had an equilibrium here, and so did Rosie. 

Sherlock was a part of that, John had to admit to himself. Sherlock had provided a home for John when John had needed it most. He never overstepped the mark – sometimes he seemed terrified of doing so – but he was always quietly there, ready to look after Rosie, to cook, to shop, to do all the domestic things that Sherlock had never deigned to do before. John knew that Sherlock was doing all of these for him. He had not yet been able to thank him. He did not know how. The magnitude of Sherlock’s kindness, and how much it had helped him, was not something that John felt able to express. On bad days, guilt filled his stomach at the thought of Sherlock, sacrificing the mad and wonderful life that he used to live, that they used to live, for him. On better days, it filled him with a warmth, like a rock he could fall back on even when he inevitably wobbled. 

And yet, for weeks he had been searching property websites, ignoring the gnawing feeling in his stomach that leaving was wrong. It was only that day, the 3rd of December, when the icy wind blew through the shoddy windows of 221B and John wrapped the blanket closer around his shoulders, that he realised that, home in Baker Street, he had never once complained about the cold. 

He closed the laptop. He would need to talk to Sherlock about it, of course. It wasn’t fair to impose an infant on anyone for too long. But maybe – just maybe – he could stay at Baker Street for a little longer.


	4. Deck the Halls

“Sherlock. Can we talk?”

Sherlock stiffened. That serious, direct note in John’s voice was one that he dreaded. Their life at 221B for the last few months had not been easy, of course, but having John back had meant that that had not mattered. But Sherlock had lived without him before, and he was all too aware that their existence together was a bubble, one that could pop at any moment. That tone of voice was the tone he had been dreading; the tone that called time. But he had hoped, at least, for one Christmas.

“Yes, of course. What’s going on?”

John gestured him into the main room, and as he settled into his armchair Sherlock sat awkwardly on his. He could feel a spike of upset rising in his throat and swallowed it down uncomfortably. He eyed John. His jaw was tense, his hand jerking slightly as it always did when he was nervous. Sherlock’s throat constricted slightly. These were signs he did not like to read.

“The thing is… Sherlock… it’s about us living here.”

Sherlock nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Rosie needs stability. And I need… I don’t know what I need. And I know we’ve imposed ourselves on you for too long.”

“Not at all.” Sherlock forced the words out.

John smiled regretfully. “You’re very kind. But I was looking at flats online the other day –“

Sherlock did not realise that he had stood up and turned away; it was an act of instinct, self-protection. He swallowed down the lump that was rising in his throat, took a few long breaths. John had stopped speaking; he did not want to turn around, to know whether he was just characteristically fumbling for words, or if he had genuinely seen through Sherlock’s callous act.

“If you’ve found somewhere, please don’t worry about me. Rosie should be somewhere stable.” His voice, always gravelly, had a forced quality, the deep vibrations masking his tremulousness. He still did not turn around, did not look at John.

“Yeah, of course.” Sherlock felt the heat burn behind his eyes, and desperately blinked it back. John continued. “It’s just that – I haven’t found anywhere good. Yet. I mean, I will, I know I will, but I guess…” John tailed off, but those words lit a spark in the centre of Sherlock’s chest. He didn’t dare to hope, and yet –

“We’ve imposed ourselves on you for far too long already. I know that. But a couple more months – give Rosie her first Christmas here, that sort of thing – if you can’t, don’t worry. Really. We’ll be fine. There’s plenty of money. Mary, you know. I just thought I’d ask.”

Sherlock did not respond – could not respond. He blinked back the tears furiously. 

John fumbled to speak further, concerned perhaps that Sherlock was unsure. “It’s just that Rosie – she likes it here. And without a mum – I’m a crap parent, Sherlock. Mine were crap and I’m frightened I’ll be crap. And it really helps having someone else around, so I’m not always second guessing myself, you know? And Rosie adores you – and Mrs. Hudson as well –“

“Of course you can stay.”

His voice was dull, uninflected, only because he could not show how much he cared. It would not be fair, he knew, on John.

John seemed taken aback. “Oh. Alright. Great. Thanks, Sherlock. Mate. It means a lot.”

Sherlock nodded, and he heard John pad all the way out to his shared room with Rosie before he turned around to the empty sitting room. He had them for a few more months, at least. But suddenly he was all too aware of how soon those months would pass.


	5. Shepherd

Rosie was crying. She had been crying, it seemed, for the last hundred years. John had tried feeding her, changing her, anything and everything he could think of, and still she wailed. He heard the door click to Sherlock’s bedroom with a wince. Sherlock had a case, an eight, he had informed John over breakfast, and had shut himself in his room all morning to do research. John had occasionally heard the voices of Scotland Yard personalities he knew through the wall when he went past – video calls, presumably, though what they thought of the screaming baby John did not know. He did not want Sherlock to think he had agreed to domesticity with the Watsons too soon.

Sherlock appeared in the door to the sitting room. John looked up, about to apologise. To his surprise, Sherlock was dressed in his long coat, scarf tucked in, and winter gloves on. He was holding a papoose.

“Get your coat. She needs a walk.”

“I’ll take her, Sherlock – you’ve got a case.”

“Nonsense. Get your coat. I’ll strap her in.”

And so they found themselves strolling in the icy December air. Sherlock had been right; a blast of cold wind coupled with the lulling rhythm of Sherlock’s walk and Rosie had slipped into a deep sleep. John had offered to take her on his chest, but Sherlock seemed to feel that it was the least that he could do – this was the most difficult Rosie had been in months, and John had been dealing with it all morning, and John could not help but be grateful. His back was beginning to hurt from carrying that papoose around everywhere; a pram was so cumbersome and could not be easily brought into many places in a city so tightly packed as London, and without a partner to share duties with she was starting to weigh him down. It was times like this that having Sherlock on hand was a godsend.

The December wind bit at them as they walked, and John could feel his nose redden in the bracing cold. The streets were quiet by the standards of central London, though perhaps this would have seemed busy elsewhere; nevertheless, as they turned a corner John could make out the sound of children shouting and laughing. Break time, he supposed. It must be a school. He had never noticed it before.

“Christ – schools for Rosie. Mary was looking at that before she died. I haven’t even though about it since.”

Sherlock smiled. “She’s not even one yet. You have time.”

John nodded. Yes. Of course he did. Still, it was a reminder to him that time was beating on, and he not heeding it.

Sherlock continued. “At some point you’ll have to choose between private and state, but that’s a bit overkill at primary school, I’d say.”

John felt his nose wrinkle inadvertently. Although he had the money for it now, he did not like the idea of private school. Sherlock laughed, and John belatedly realised that of course Sherlock would have been to one, probably all the way up from babyhood. “Sorry. Just not my cup of tea.”

“Not at all. If it’s state, it’s just based on your catchment area. So this is the one for Baker Street.”

Sherlock had said it casually, and yet something stopped in John. Rosie could go here. Was that what Sherlock was suggesting? That John live near here – or still live in Baker Street – whilst Rosie went to school? “I…” He found himself quite unable to respond. The catchment area – that was quite possibly something that Sherlock just knew, like he knew dozens of perfumes from one sniff and hundreds of types of tobacco ash. But there was a chance, just a chance, that it wasn’t something that Sherlock just knew. That it was something he had researched, maybe even wanted.

Misinterpreting John’s silence, Sherlock stumbled over his words. “Just – hypothetically. Not that Rosie will go there. That’s just as an example. I don’t want you to think –“

“No, no. Of course.”

John’s eyes met Sherlock’s and desperately tried to scrutinise them. What feeling was hidden underneath those impenetrable veils of blue? He shivered. Every time that life seemed to be ironing itself out, it took a turn and became more complicated. 

“You’re cold.”

“No – no I’m not – “

But Sherlock was already pulling off his trademark blue scarf and wrapping it around John’s neck, tucking it into his woollen jumper. John did not have expensive tastes, and the soft touch of cashmere would normally have felt slightly alien, even discomfiting in all of its luxury. But somehow today it felt just like home.


	6. Joy

John was in a mood. Perhaps he had had a bad day at the surgery, but Sherlock suspected there was more to it. Rosie’s first Christmas, spent without her mother. John’s first spent without Mary. Sherlock could see this knowledge weighing on John in the increasing sag of his shoulders, the dullness in his eyes as he resigned himself to bereavement. Christmas can be a sad time, Mrs. Hudson had warned him as the season approached. Sherlock had nodded, but he had not fully comprehended. He had never lost someone in the way John had.

That evening, John had the newspaper open and was avoiding conversation. Sherlock knew that there was no real interest in the paper; it was this morning’s, and anything interesting in it would have reached John via his phone, which would have provided him with up to date headlines throughout the day. One of the odd things about the internet age was that the day’s newspaper was defunct almost as soon as it was printed. But still it was a refuge for John when he needed some peace, and Sherlock bit his tongue and refrained from commenting on it. It was a level of tact he would not have believed he possessed before Mary’s death; but then, people change. 

Rosie was playing on the floor with some alphabet blocks that Mummy Holmes had dropped around a couple of weeks before; she knew the flat was not large and was careful not to overload them with possessions, but had offloaded several of Sherlock and Mycroft’s old toys onto Rosie over the last few months. She had long resigned herself to a lack of grandchildren from her boys; Mycroft had always been disdainful of the prospect, and Sherlock… Well. He didn’t know what she thought there. But he had a suspicion that she knew. Mothers always do.

Sherlock stifled a smile as Rosie threw one of the blocks into John’s lap, landing squarely on him. Luckily the blocks were foam, and John smiled distractedly as he placed it back into her hands. “No throwing, sweetie.”

“Da…”

There was no ‘d’ to round off ‘dad’, but it was spoken in such a tone that there was no question that she had meant it as such. Sherlock’s heart skipped a beat. Da. Her first word. Joy swelled all the way through his chest as he felt his grin split his face. He turned to John, whose grumpiness was already forgotten, sweeping Rosie up into his arms, beaming.

“Say it again, Rosie. What did you say? Da?”

“Da,” Rosie affirmed, and both men starting laughing uncontrollably in a kind of hysterical joy. John kissed Rosie emphatically. “You clever girl. I always said she was clever, didn’t I, Sherlock? Da. You’re brilliant, you are.” A tremendous warmth filled Sherlock, not just on behalf of Rosie this time, but to see John so joyous.   
Rosie started to call out, incoherent once more but clearly pointing at the blocks, and John, laughing, put her down to let her continue playing with them. Sherlock gazed on the innocent child, not expecting to feel John’s strong arms pull him into a hug. A hug. John never hugged. Sherlock steadied himself as he embraced him back, trying not to let that familiar smell overpower him as he inhaled John’s scent. He felt the shorter man’s forehead brush against the bottom of his face, and Sherlock had to resist the urge to kiss it. He simply closed his eyes and embraced John tighter. A moment, he reflected, for the Mind Palace. A memory for when he is gone.

John pulled away, and Sherlock saw his eyes were glistening. It was a moment before he remembered why – Rosie’s first word. Of course. A sense of guilt began to percolate in his stomach – this was a moment for parents. He thought of Mary. She should be the one here, sharing Rosie’s achievement with John, not him. 

And yet. Here he was.

John never hugged, that was normally true. But there was something different in this moment.


	7. Blankets

“You are not showing my eleven-month-old The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sherlock.”

“It’s for kids! And it’s a Christmas movie.”

“It’s a Tim Burton movie.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Christmas films are dreadful. It’s one of the good ones.”

“Eleven months!”

Sherlock rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. “Next year, then.”

John felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Next year. Said so casually. He swallowed, took a breath. One Christmas at a time. Sherlock did not seem to notice John’s stumble, and he quickly composed himself. “What else is on? Look, here’s one on the BBC – an old one. 1944. There can’t be anything inappropriate in that.”  
Sherlock looked over John’s shoulder. “Meet Me in St. Louis. Some children try to commit mass murder. It’s glossed over though.” John looked over at him, worried. “Honestly. It’s appropriate, I swear. Not just because I’m accustomed to serial killings. Plus, she won’t remember anyway.” He placed the pile of quilts he had borrowed from Mrs. Hudson at John’s feet and started to arrange them. “Plus, it’s actually quite good,” he added begrudgingly. “Daddy always used to make us watch it at Christmas. Mycroft hates it. I pretended to hate it too for ages. Daddy would kill me if he knew I was voluntarily watching it, the fight Mycroft and I used to put up.”

John laughed, helping him to arrange the quilts to keep Rosie warm for her first Christmas film night. Suggested by Mrs. Hudson, of course, though she had double-booked her date with Mr. Chatterjee. She would approve of the film, John thought. Plus, it was a window into Sherlock’s childhood, and an amusing one at that; he enjoyed the thought of a teenage Sherlock and Mycroft rebelling against their parents’ choice of film. The thought of a teenage Mycroft alone was funny. “Come on then, it’s starting,” said John, flicking over to BBC2 as a young Judy Garland stepped out of a terribly quaint horse and carriage. “This had better be good.”  
“Trust me, it is,” Sherlock said as he slipped under the quilt beside John and Rosie. He was very close, John suddenly realised; the sofa was not large, and he could feel the rise and fall of Sherlock’s breath under the quilt that they shared. A frisson of electricity ran through him as Sherlock’s leg rubbed against his own, and he let out the breath that he had not realised he had been holding. This would be a long night, aware of Sherlock’s every oblivious movement beside him. 

And yet, John found himself caught up in the film. Sherlock had been right; it was good, although not normally the sort of film John would choose. Yet he found himself caught up in the mundane family drama around the turn of the previous century, his heart lifting with the surge of the music. Rosie was quickly lulled to sleep, but they did not switch the film off; although Sherlock had seen it many times before, John saw that he was captivated by it once again. It was visually pleasing, he couldn’t deny. And there weren’t many films that Sherlock watched without complaining, so he took that as a plus too. 

Have yourself a merry little Christmas  
Let your heart be light.

Rosie was fast asleep in John’s arms, breathing lightly, and as Judy Garland crooned out a Christmas tune to the child in her arms, Sherlock leant over to brush the soft blonde hairs on Rosie’s head with his thumb. John had never seen him behave with such tenderness. Sherlock’s hand brushed gently over his where he was cradling Rosie’s head, his ridged, calloused fingers from years of playing the violin touching on John’s smoother fingers.

“Sorry,” Sherlock murmured, pulling his hand back from Rosie’s head, and John saw the usual guardedness fall back into his eyes, eyes which had just moments ago been so vulnerable in their loving gaze.

“Don’t be sorry.”

He didn’t know what made him do it – the family melodrama playing in front of him, perhaps – but he reached out gently to Sherlock and guided his hand back to Rosie’s hair. She did not stir. Sherlock smiled, wistfully, John thought, as he gazed down at her, hand resting lightly by the side of her head, thumb gently stroking her downy hair. With the arm that wasn’t keeping Rosie in place, John reached over and rested his hand lightly on Sherlock’s. He felt an intake of breath from the other man, but he did not pull away. Neither of them spoke. John did not even dare to look at Sherlock, instead keeping his eyes fixated on the screen, but unable to think of anything except for Sherlock’s warm touch, all his awareness concentrated in that small patch of skin on skin.

So have yourself a merry little Christmas now…


	8. O Christmas Tree

“What do… other people do?”

Sherlock had cornered Molly Hooper as she was leaving work to ask about Christmas. Her simultaneous sigh and smile as she placed her lab coat in her locker was characteristic of the rueful exasperation that Sherlock so often saw in her eyes to do with him.

“Advent calendars? Though I suppose Rosie is a bit young for them… she might choke on the chocolate. You can get ones with pictures in them, sheep, three wise men, that sort of thing. Although it’s the eighth already, I don’t suppose she’d mind.”

Advent calendar. Yes, he had had one as a child. Mycroft and he used to try to deduce what was behind each window. He made a mental note.  
“And a Christmas tree, of course, if you have space for one with all the mess.”

A Christmas tree. “We had a Christmas tree! When we were little.”

Molly sighed. “Yes, Sherlock. Most families do. I don’t even know why you’re bothering asking me – you have actually celebrated Christmas before.” She locked the locker door and began to stride towards the exit, but Sherlock evenly intercepted her once more.

“Yes, but we also had to crack cryptic codes before opening our presents. I never know what’s universal and what’s just Holmes tradition.”

Molly couldn’t stop herself from cracking a smile. Sherlock took that as an invitation to continue. “Do you have a Christmas tree?”

Molly shook her head. “Well, sort of. Just one of those small, desk ones. Fake. But I put little decorations on it. Toby would fight a real one all day.” Sherlock looked at her, uncomprehensive. “My cat.”

Sherlock had met the cat at least five times up to this point, and deduced his existence from the hairs on Molly’s clothing on the daily, but had never managed to remember his name. Toby. He made a mental note to log it, but already knew his brain had given it up as a bad job. Some things just weren’t important.   
“Right – so a Christmas tree.”

“See if you can get lights, decorations. Mrs. Hudson will probably have some spare if you ask nicely. Rosie will love it. There’s nothing quite so exciting,” said Molly. Her eyes were starting to glimmer with the excitement of Christmas; she had always been a romantic, Sherlock reminded himself. That was why he had come to ask her, after all. 

“Besides,” Molly continued, “Christmas will be hard for John this year. No Mary. The first year is always the most difficult. The first Christmas without my dad, my mum couldn’t do anything. She just sat there, looking so, so lost. I know John and Mary didn’t have each other that long – but it’s sadder that way, really. A Christmas tree would be nice – try to get the spirit in. Remind him that life still goes on, of how much he’s got. That’s what we did with Mum.”

Molly’s father. Sherlock had known he had died, of course, but he had not thought about everything that went with that. He had never really thought about grief until Mary died, not even during his own ‘death’. Which had been a mistake, he had realised afterwards. Grief was something he had always pushed aside in his head, leaving for later. It would come, and he would deal with it then. 

Except now he had to deal with someone else’s. And he did not know how. 

Molly seemed to notice the uncharacteristic uncertainty in his silence, for she stepped in. “Honestly. Sweep him up in the Christmas spirit. Let him know he’s still got a family, just a different one. You’re spending Christmas Day together, right?”

Sherlock stopped. He did not know. He had never said it to John. He had assumed so; he had ascertained that John was estranged from his parents, although they did not speak about it, and John had never shown the slightest inclination to see Harry. They had both gone to Sherlock’s parents’ house the previous Christmas, and although the invitation had once more been extended it had been with extreme trepidation, which Sherlock thought was only fair, really – he had, after all, drugged them the previous year. So he had politely declined his parents for both of them and said they would spend it together at Baker Street, and as a compromise his parents were to come up for drinks on Christmas Eve. But in all of these plans, he had never asked John.

Molly seemed to read all of this in his face. “Oh, Sherlock. Ask him, for God’s sake.”

Sherlock nodded mutely as he finally let her leave. Christmas was turning out to be a lot more complicated than he had thought.


	9. Making a List

For all his mnemonic powers, Sherlock frequently forgot to do his Christmas shopping until the 23rd or so, often calling in last minute favours from high street vendors to secure something technically sold out that wouldn’t seem too shabby, or simply not bothering in the case of Mycroft. This year, however, Mrs. Hudson had reminded him early.

“And you have done your Christmas shopping, haven’t you, dear?”

Well. Early for him. Mrs. Hudson had assured him that the ninth of December was not early, and that he must get on with it right away. And so he sat in his bedroom in Baker Street, thinking. Browsing irritated him. There was too much noise, pushing in on his brain, too many people. He preferred to know what he wanted.

Mrs. Hudson, knowing his annual ineptitude, had already dropped some less than subtle hints about slippers to him; she had dropped no such hints to John, suggesting that she trusted his ability to buy presents far better than Sherlock’s. Sherlock could not blame her. That would be her sorted. He would take his parents to the theatre when they came up on Christmas Eve. He doubted Mycroft would want anything. That only left John and Rosie.

Only the previous week he had walked past the open shop front of a Hamley’s, glittering with Christmas promise. He had never looked twice in one of them before, but he had been awed this year. He imagined Rosie faced with such splendour. He knew, of course, that to a child under a year old it doesn’t matter whether the toys are Hamley’s or hand-me-downs. And yet.

You’re not her father, he reminded himself. Nothing too large, too ostentatious. He was her godfather, of course, but then, when was the last time he had received something from his godfather? He had not seen Uncle Rudi in several years now. He did not want such an apathy to develop between him and Rosie. He knew that it was inevitable, of course; these few months, which had meant so much in his brain, would be forgotten by her. He would be an uncle who appeared less and less frequently as her and John’s lives got busier and busier, wherever they ended up living, and those few early months spent with him would be symbolic not of a happy home life but of her father’s mourning, his brokenness. These moments, the happiest in Sherlock’s life, would be nothing but a stopgap to her.

You’re not her father.

A teddy bear, then. Something she could hang onto, remember him by in some way even when she had forgotten him. That would be fine, he told himself, even as his heart sank into his chest.

And then John. Last Christmas, the gifts he and John had exchanged had been meagre, impersonal. On John’s part, Sherlock had deduced an awkwardness; Sherlock had been shot by Mary, and caught in these divided loyalties, trying to figure the whole damn thing out, John’s present had betrayed his distraction. Christmas generally had been lacklustre on that front, at least until Billy and Sherlock had drugged most members of the gathering. Sherlock’s gift to John had been equally impersonal that year; it could conceivably have been attributed to the same distractedness as John’s, but it had not been. It had been a deliberate distancing of himself from the unhappy couple. Sherlock had known from the moment he left the wedding early that it had to happen, and his relapse shortly after had only proven it to himself. He could not function seeing John like that every day. Not just unhappy; this had been long before Mary had shot Sherlock. Married. 

He could not believe that that was only a year ago. So much had happened – not only Mary’s death, but this rhythm of life that he, John and Rosie had settled into, neither familiar nor new. And soon it would be over. Perhaps that was why the impulse to get John something important this year was so strong. Not as a vow – he had made enough of those, seen enough of them go wrong – nor as a bargaining chip. Just as a thanks, for everything John had done for him.

It is difficult, though, to buy a present for the person that you love. Sherlock remembered their Christmas party of 2011, when Molly Hooper had bought him a gift. How to tell someone you love them without scaring them off, to thank them without embarrassing them or driving a wedge between you, to ask for nothing in return? All that Sherlock wanted to express was somehow inexpressible – and if he did have the language, he was not sure that he wanted to use it. He could not help but feel that it was the one surefire way to drive John and Rosie away from him quicker than they were already inevitably going.

Perhaps he would sleep on it, decide it later. After all, despite what Mrs. Hudson might say, the ninth of December was still pretty early.


	10. Candle

John hadn’t touched an advent wreath since he was a kid, but in Sherlock’s peculiar drive to make things Christmassy it was one of the far too many items overspilling the Baker Street mantlepiece. John did not mind this; Sherlock’s panicked kindness and overcompensation for the Christmas that should have been, Rosie’s first Christmas with her mum, had led to the brightest Baker Street John had ever seen, even if in number alone the decorations were beginning to look gaudy. Sherlock’s own sense of taste had stopped anything too twee, saccharin or annoying from making it into the house, and John was glad for the lack of bells or other noise-making decorations which he remembered from childhood Christmases as deeply irritating. An advent wreath was much more in line with Sherlock’s sense of propriety.

That afternoon, with Sherlock out on a case, he decided to light it. It wasn’t a Sunday, and he knew that was how it was supposed to work, but he also knew the candles would run out if he did one each Sunday, and besides it was a fire hazard with an eleven-month old in the flat. He thought he would simply show it to Rosie, and light the candles in memory of her mother. While Sherlock was out, of course. Even whilst Baker Street had been a welcome rhythm to slip into once again, there was still an unspoken awkwardness around Mary. John wondered if Sherlock still blamed himself for her death. John certainly did not blame him any longer. It was a conversation he didn’t know how to have, somehow.

He put the wreath on the table and sat beside it, Rosie on his lap, entranced by the beauty of it. Striking a match, he lit the first candle. His nostrils were instantly hit with the smell of cinnamon, so powerful that Rosie started coughing. John soothed her softly. There was no way Sherlock wouldn’t know about this now. He wondered if Sherlock would be jealous, of John and Rosie lighting the wreath just the two of them. He pushed the thought out of his mind. Why would he be jealous? This was about Mary, John’s wife and Rosie’s mother. Her relationship with Sherlock had been strained to say the least.

The strange thing was, that in the last few months he had been thinking less and less about Mary. There was a strange guilt that now accompanied her image in his head, as he was aware of how inattentive a widower he had been. Part of that was Rosie, of course; there was simply no time to grieve when one had a screaming baby to deal with twenty four seven. And yet it was more than that. In the early days, John had been wracked by nightmares, plagued by hallucinations, unable to even look at his daughter, palming her straight off onto anyone who would take her, anyone who could help him forget his responsibilities, forget he existed. It was after two months of this that Mrs. Hudson of all people intervened and all but frogmarched him back to Baker Street.

And suddenly, things had changed.

John didn’t really know how to pray, but when he lit the candles he tried anyway. To thank Mary, for bringing him Rosie, for bringing him solace in his grief when he had most needed her, for everything. Nearly everything, he reminded himself – maybe not shooting Sherlock. Everything else. To apologise to her for not grieving enough, for not stopping his life, but to tell her that he had to keep moving and living, for Rosie. And, he added, for himself. He knew that Mary understood that. Hadn’t she done the very same, after all? And whilst his new life might not be so glamorous or exciting as Mary zipping through identities around the world, it was his. It was what he wanted.

And suddenly, a whole host of feelings burst upon him, as though from behind a floodgate. Feelings that he could not voice or understand, but which he hoped Mary could. Feelings of belonging, of home, of love, and of need, stronger than he had ever felt before. He clasped Rosie inadvertently tighter, letting go when she let out a yelp. The feelings washed over him as quickly as they had come. 

He looked to the advent wreath. The reflection of the candlelight bounced off Rosie’s forehead, seeming to plant on it a benevolent kiss. Perhaps John imagined it, but he felt such a kiss on his own forehead as well. He breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever happened now, going forward, he hoped he had Mary’s blessing.


	11. Dashing through the snow

“Aaaahhh!”

Sherlock rolled over in bed, groggy. What ungodly noise had pierced the veil of his unconsciousness at the ungodly hour of… he checked the clock. Six oh five AM. Ungodly indeed. He wrapped the duvet a little closer around himself and turned himself over, thinking he could still get back – 

“Aaaaahhh!”

Rosie. He could hear John trying to shush her, panicked, not wanting to wake him. A wry smile came to Sherlock’s face unbidden. Well, he was awake now, and he knew Rosie well enough to know that shriek. That was a shriek of joy, like the one she had given when she saw Father Christmas on the tube a few days ago. Whatever was causing it must be similarly momentous. He slid out of bed and wrapped his dressing gown around himself, the deep plum shielding his lanky limbs from the cold morning air. Walking out to the kitchen, he saw exactly what was making Rosie so excited. Out of the window, beating against the Victorian panes, was more snow than he had ever seen in London before. Being up so early helped; even on the snowiest of days, the blanket of white soon turned to slush under the London footfall. This early, however, most of the snow remained untrodden. Baker Street looked like another world. 

John looked abashed to see Sherlock rising so early. “Sorry. I didn’t want her to wake you. But – the snow, I guess.”

“It’s exciting for her,” Sherlock replied genuinely, and John’s eyes softened with relief. “Why are you up so early?” he added as an afterthought. Surely it wasn’t just the snow.

“Rosie normally doesn’t sleep past half five or so.”

Sherlock normally stayed up until the early hours, whereas John was more sensible; it was no surprise, then, that he had never noticed this before, those crucial hours being the few he seemed to salvage from each night for sleep. “You should have said.”

John shrugged. “It’s okay. She’s not your daughter.”

The words hit Sherlock like a dull blow, thudding into his gut. She’s not your daughter. John had said them to be kind, he knew, to make sure that Sherlock felt that there was no additional responsibility on him. It was kind. Meant kindly. He twisted his lips into what he hoped was a grateful smile. She’s not your daughter. Well, she wasn’t. There was nothing untruthful about what John had said. He looked wistfully at Rosie, kicking happily strapped into her chair, then on an impulse grabbed her out of it, deftly unfastening the buckles on her high chair as he swung her around.

“What are you doing?” 

Sherlock grinned. “Hat, coat, scarf – we’re going out.”

“You’re in your dressing gown!”

He burst out laughing – he had forgotten. “So?”

“If you go out like that and get hypothermia – Mrs. Hudson will kill you.”

“She won’t.”

“She will,” John insisted. “And she’ll kill me for letting you.”

Sherlock laughed. “Alright. You wrap her up – I’ll be two minutes.”

“Why?”

Sherlock called back to John from his bedroom, already searching through his wardrobe for something suitably warm so he would not be reprimanded a second time. “It’s her first snow! And she has to see it when it’s soft and pure – before the roadsweepers get their machines on it, before the rush hour pedestrians turn it grey with their tread. It’s beautiful then too – differently beautiful. But it shouldn’t be her first time.” He rushed back out of his bedroom, fully clothed and wrapped up, euphoric, to see John wide-eyed and grinning right back at him, Rosie’s grin just visible beneath her woollen swaddling making a third.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”


	12. Visiting

Although Mummy and Daddy would come up for Christmas Eve drinks, they had insisted that it would not be enough to see Sherlock only once over the holiday period, and so on the Saturday of the 12th Sherlock had made his way down to Sussex to see them. John and Rosie had come along too – that had seemed a no-brainer to Mummy, who had automatically extended an invitation for three rather than one, and although John had looked slightly perplexed at being asked back after the previous year’s disaster, he acquiesced without voicing those concerns. Sherlock was grateful for that; he did not want to, could not, even, explain to John how completely he thought of him as family.

The lunch had been lovely, actually; John and Daddy got on a storm, and Sherlock and Mummy had exchanged playful barbs as they were wont to – they were less acerbic without Mycroft present, Sherlock always found. Sherlock had been enlisted to help with the washing up whilst John had been assured that he should do no such thing, and that he should show Rosie the garden. Sherlock had huffed and puffed at his parents’ double standard, though of course they were absolutely correct – lovely as she was, Rosie was enough work even were John not a guest. Sherlock and Mummy had stayed reasonably non-verbal through the washing-up, beyond functional conversation; Sherlock had found his eye captivated by the sight of John outside the window, showing Rosie each plant, no doubt making up stories about the magical creatures that lived in them. He was sure John knew nothing about plants. The housework finished, he had lapsed into stillness at the window, just observing.

“You seem distracted, love.”

The problem with parents was that they never knew when you wanted to be left alone. Sherlock would have been content gazing out the window for hours, following John’s every movement, the tenderness that he never let the rest of the world see. He turned to Mummy with an obvious sigh.

“Not really. Just thinking.”

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Sherlock did not deign to respond. He turned his face back to the glass. John seemed totally oblivious to Sherlock’s gaze; he had plucked a flower from the hedge and was using it to tickle Rosie’s nose whilst she giggled and sneezed.

“He’s a good dad,” Mummy said softly.

“Do you want something?”

Sherlock had not meant it to come out so harshly, but luckily Mummy knew him well enough that she did not even flinch, merely slid into the seat beside him. They sat in silence for a few moments before she spoke again. 

“What’s eating you, then?”

“Nothing.”

Mummy snorted. “Cleverest man in England – you don’t think I’ll really buy that.”

“What about Mycroft?” Sherlock asked, unable to stop a cheeky smile from playing at his lips.

“Joint cleverest. Both my boys.” Sherlock laughed at Mummy’s exasperation; the fraternal competition would never cease. “But neither of you is a patch on the cleverest woman –“ she gestured towards herself – “so come on. What’s going on?”

Sherlock shook his head. He did not have the words. Mummy seemed to understand; she simply sat beside him. Sherlock felt her eyes on him as he looked straight ahead, through the glass once more to John.

“If you want him to stay, you have to ask him.”

Sherlock gulped. Was he so transparent? He turned to her, but before he could force out a garbled denial, Mummy continued:

“I don’t pretend to understand whatever it is that is going on between the pair of you. But you’re the happiest you’ve ever been since he was around – although fewer buildings jumped off and bullet wounds would be nice. But I don’t miss the drugs, the Saturday night A&Es we used to meet at when other families did Sunday lunch – and I’d rather they didn’t return when John leaves.”

When. 

Mummy seemed to read the word in his eyes.

“So ask him to stay. Talk to him. Tell him how you feel – however that is. You’re an adult now, Sherlock – yearning after a problem won’t solve it.”

No. It wouldn’t. But as Mummy sighed and began to potter, giving up this conversation as a bad job, Sherlock couldn’t help but feel that this was a case of easier said than done.


	13. Storm

Ever since returning from his parents, it was as though Sherlock had been under a black cloud. John could not understand it. John had been surprised when Sherlock had asked him down to the cottage; he did not know whether it had been Sherlock or his parents who had extended the invitation, but its existence caused a flutter in his stomach, nerves he had not felt around the Holmes family before. It had felt like something almost incipient. The first Christmas – because John could not count the fiasco that was the previous year – of many.

And then, on return, Sherlock had sulked. It had been a day, which had not been totally unusual for Sherlock before Rosie, but was now ringing alarm bells in John’s brain. Before Rosie, Sherlock had frequently lapsed into sullen silences lasting several days, but his most antisocial habits had diminished now that he was sharing his home with a father and daughter, something that John suspected had taken considerable effort. 

Perhaps this was a sign that the effort could not be sustained. The first of many.

John shivered. Perhaps it was time to look at that flat after all.

But whilst they were sharing, John had to admit that he still needed Sherlock’s help. That afternoon, Rosie was particularly peevish – she had thrown her food so that it splattered all over the Baker Street wallpaper several times already that dinnertime, and had just let out an almighty yell when John threatened to pick her up. 

“If you had read any of the multiple parenting books I have left lying around the flat for you to pick up, you wouldn’t try to pick her up.”

John bit his lip to try to keep back the retort. Sherlock’s attempts to tell him he was in the wrong were infuriating at the best of times, but this was pushing him to the limit. “I’m doing my best,” he forced out. 

“If you say so.” Sherlock’s voice curled out from behind the kitchen doors. John tried and failed not to fume. 

“And what about you? Are you doing your best?”

“She’s not my daughter,” Sherlock responded acerbically, just audible above Rosie, whose yells had now turned into definite squalls. The words hit John with the power to wind him. No, of course she wasn’t, but by God, they were raising her together, weren’t they? Maybe not forever, maybe not even for much longer, but that was the current arrangement. And right now, when Rosie was screaming fit to bring down not just 221B but 221A and C as well, John could do with a little sodding help.   
He raised Rosie up, holding her at arm’s length to avoid the kicks coming from her limbs, and marched down the stairs to strap her into the pram. Whatever was wrong with Sherlock, he would sort out at a later date, but right now he could only deal with one infantile tantrum, and he had a strong feeling he would need a brisk walk to ward off one of his own.


	14. Hope

Sherlock knew he should not have burst out at John the day prior, but he could not bring himself to properly apologise. Since talking to Mummy, everything had become much more urgent. She had put a countdown on the question, somehow. Stay with me. He knew the words, knew he could say it. Or perhaps the politer, more open, would you perhaps…? And yet, John’s words from a few days ago kept echoing around his head.

She’s not your daughter.

Before then, he had begun to kid himself that he perhaps had a chance. The future had seemed hazy; he was no longer foolish enough to imagine a halcyon daydream of love and affection. But a future together, as a kind of family sharing some kind of love; he had hoped for that. It had all seemed possible until John had spoken those words.

She’s not your daughter.

And so, with Mummy’s words bubbling in the back of his brain and John’s in the forefront, he had lashed out at John the previous night, thrown John’s brutal honesty straight back at him, and John had simply walked out. Sherlock had not known what to make of that. They were John’s own words, after all. But after a few hours he had returned, and the evening at Baker Street had been marked by an uneasy silence. John was normally quite direct about personal matters, but he had been silent for so long, uttering only a few brusque and functional words, that Sherlock suspected it was on him to apologise, even though it was John who had wounded him.   
Yet he could not live with this horribly pregnant silence weighing down 221B, and so when John returned from the clinic, Sherlock sidled up to him and placed a miniature chocolate Christmas king in front of him. They had been selling them in Speedy’s when Sherlock had gone down for a watery coffee, and he had bought it on an impulse.

“Peace offering.”

He was relieved to see John crack a smile at the ridiculousness of the gift. “Yeah, alright.” Sherlock turned to go back to his experiment, but John interrupted him. 

“Thanks, Sherlock. But – what you said last night –“

Sherlock froze.

“We should talk about it.”

Sherlock nodded, swallowing, and turned back to face John. John would not look him in the eye, Sherlock noted; his eyes were deliberately angled downward, fixed on the table in front of him. Sherlock slid into the seat opposite.

“What you said – I needed to take some time to think about it. You said you weren’t Rosie’s father. And you’re not, of course you’re not. I’ve been putting too much pressure on you, and I’m sorry. You didn’t sign up for this, and I’ve been guilting you into it.”

Sherlock shook his head, finally forming the words that had been forming a lump in his throat. “You haven’t.”

John laughed drily. “You’re still young – I’ve saddled you with a brooding middle-aged man and a baby. I assumed that you would take us in – I didn’t even think about you. It wasn’t fair.” He took a deep intake of breath and continued. “So I’ve been looking at flats, and I think I’ve found somewhere that will work. I’ll be out of your hair by the new year.”

“No.”

John looked up for the first time, and Sherlock was touched to see that his eyes were tinged with red. “What do you mean, no?”

“I mean no. It wasn’t unfair. I offered 221B. I offered to help you with Rosie for as long as you needed, no strings attached. And no – I don’t want you to leave.” He gulped, afraid he’d said too much. “I don’t want either of you to leave. Unless you want to leave. In which case I obviously won’t stop you –“ He was fumbling now, and he knew it, but John stepped in to save him.

“Do you mean that?”

Sherlock nodded, and John breathed out a heavy sigh. The smile he gave Sherlock was genuine, his eyes filled with relief. Sherlock did not trust himself to say anything, and from the glisten of light that reflected off John’s pupils Sherlock suspected he was in a similar situation.

“Alright then,” John finally whispered hoarsely. He nodded again, as though unsure of what to say. “Thank you.”

Sherlock had never seen John so moved in all their time together in Baker Street. When he looked up at him again, John had wiped away the slight glistening, or it might have even been a trick of the light. But more than he had dared in a long time, in that streak of water glinting in the winter light, Sherlock dared finally to acknowledge a glimmer of hope.


	15. Jolly

Despite his surprising insistence on Christmas decorations, John found that Sherlock was far from keen on Father Christmas. Every time John brought him up, Sherlock’s response was simply that he did not exist. John could not reason with him.

“We didn’t have Father Christmas in my house growing up.”

“You probably did,” John reasoned. “You just worked him out when you were three or something, and so you don’t remember.”

“I remember everything.”

John snorted. “Do you remember how you became this annoying?”

“All you’re going to teach her is that her parents lie to her, John. Is that what you want her to grow up thinking about you? Or would you rather she feel that you trust her to be a mature adult?”

John could not help but laugh. “Sherlock, she’s eleven months.”

And still he heard the word that Sherlock had used. Parents, plural. John had not reacted – they had only recently patched up their most recent spat, and John was not sure how Sherlock would take him pointing out the ease with which Sherlock seemed to be referring to himself as Rosie’s parent. He suspected that Sherlock himself had not noticed, and if it were pointed out, would back off. John was slowly realising that he did not want him to do that.

Despite the many hyperlogical explanations, John still managed to drag Sherlock to the nearest shopping centre to meet Santa with him and Rosie. The queue was not too long, largely because it was a Wednesday afternoon and all the older children were still in school. John reasoned that it was better this way; it really wasn’t fair to submit the parents of children who had just grown out of that stage to a whole host of screaming babies. This meant that the queue, although short, was tempestuous, and more than once John caught Sherlock gazing longingly at a pair of earmuffs in a winter display window. 

When they were finally let through into Father Christmas’s grotto, however, Rosie was immediately awed into silence; the red crepe and blue lights were not much in John’s eyes, but he could still vaguely remember the excitement he had felt as a child in such places. This was Rosie’s first. He tried to fix her gobsmacked expression in his mind to keep forever, a souvenir of the day. He stole a side glance at Sherlock, suspecting he was doing the same. A shame he didn’t have a Mind Palace, really.  
John passed Rosie over to Father Christmas, who placed her on his knee. “What do you want for Christmas, then, love?” 

“Yes!” Rosie replied excitedly. Her vocabulary had been slowly but surely expanding since her first word came, but not quite enough to declare what she wanted for Christmas. Father Christmas gave a great ho ho ho, that John didn’t think was entirely feigned. “Well, I’m sure your daddies will do their very best to get you that, whatever it is.”

John’s eyes could not help but flicker towards Sherlock, who was studiously looking at the ground, yet John saw an unmistakeable smile playing at the edges of his lips. John felt a warmth spreading in his chest that had nothing to do with the magic of Christmas – that little introspective smile that only Sherlock wore, and at being called Rosie’s dad of all things. He knew they should clear up the mistake, but having seen Sherlock’s quiet pride at Father Christmas’s words, John thought perhaps that Father Christmas did not need to know.


	16. Twinkling

Sherlock hated how right Molly Hooper had been about the magic of Christmas. 

Sherlock had always thought of Christmas as a meretricious festivity for those whose minds were subject to the inanity of ritual and incapable of logical analysis. Yet, this time around, he had to admit Molly was right. Singing Christmas songs with Rosie earlier, when he had thought Sherlock wasn’t looking, there had been a twinkle in John’s eye. Twinkles were unverifiable, to be sure, and it might just have been the light of the fire glinting in John’s vision, but despite never having seen such a twinkle before Sherlock would have sworn by it. And with it came a fleeting thought:

Goodbye, Mary.

She would always be there with them on some level, Sherlock knew that. Such people do not just disappear. But seeing John there playing in front of the Christmas tree with his daughter, Sherlock could not help but deduce. John’s neck muscles, which had seemed permanently tight with strain, were relaxed. The hollow tautness of his cheeks had filled out in the last month, and the circles under his eyes which at one stage had resembled charcoal seemed to have been brushed away by time. His brow, once permanently furrowed, was still lined and worn, unmistakeably changed by Mary’s death, but today it was loose, even carefree. It was the first day he was not carrying her any longer. Not a day would go by when Mary would not enter John’s mind, Sherlock knew that. But it was mid-afternoon, and he wondered if she had yet. John would never forget her, and nor should he. But he was moving on.

Suddenly, Rosie extended her arm and pointed up at him. “She-wock!” Her pronunciation was questionable at best, but his name was clearly recognisable.   
John looked over at him with a smile. “That’s you.”

Not so long ago, Sherlock thought, a much more volatile John would have been swept up in anxiety about Rosie saying his name, the inevitable guilt that Sherlock had seen wash over his face every time he realised his daughter knew Sherlock better than she would ever know her mother. But not today. Today his face was bright with paternal pride, and Sherlock felt sure that he was beaming back. He sat down with them by the Christmas tree and put his finger in Rosie’s tiny hand, pretending to shake it. She gurgled with pleasure. John reached over to pat his back, a sort of half-hug. Sherlock’s chest tightened, scared to betray himself. The distance between his face and John’s was narrow, so narrow that Sherlock could feel the heat of his breath, smell the vague mixture of chemicals that hung over him after a day at the clinic, see every pore on his weather-beaten face –

And then he pulled away, and Sherlock released a breath he had not known he was holding. He turned furiously away from John, determined to hide the flush that he could feel rising in his cheeks, quickly placing a building block in Rosie’s hands. “Here, Rosie. Aren’t you clever?”

“Wock,” she responded, and John laughed.

“Sher-lock, Rosie.”

“She-wock.”

John grinned at him. “She’s not bad, is she?”

Sherlock swallowed and turned to John, hoping his blush had abated, forcing his lips into an innocent smile. “She’s fantastic.”


	17. Let Nothing You Dismay

It was an innocuous moment when John finally realised it.

He did not want to leave; he had known this for a long time. Putting off the new flat, delaying estate agents, all from the will to spend a few more precious weeks in Baker Street. He had excused it to himself, told himself that it would be hard to raise Rosie alone, that he needed support. That that was why. 

It wasn’t entirely a lie. But it wasn’t the whole truth. 

And then, that Thursday, he walked in from work and into the sitting room, as he always did, plonked his bag down and turned, looking for Rosie. And there she was, in the kitchen, wide-eyed at a laboratory experiment. John recognised it immediately from school – it wasn’t particularly dangerous, just a baking soda explosion. Sherlock knew better than to do anything dangerous with one so young, though by the look of the velocity of the eruption John wondered whether Sherlock hadn’t added a couple of extra reactions of his own. Rosie was mesmerised, unable to look away from the bubbling liquid. She was sitting on Sherlock’s lap; he was holding her up so that she could see, rapidly murmuring to her words that John could not hear, words that from anybody else would have been baby talk but from Sherlock John imagined would be chemical reactions. Start her scientific education from the get-go. 

Neither of them had noticed John had come in, and John had no desire to change that. He did not interrupt but stood there, watching. Sherlock was often odd around Rosie; he remembered all too well the row they had had about the role he played in parenting Rosie, and often wondered how Sherlock behaved with her when he was not around. Now he knew. He had never seen Sherlock speak so tenderly. Every movement was gentle, careful, as though powerfully aware of the fragility of the young, beautiful life he was cradling. Those ice blue eyes which John had grown so used to were filled with a care that John had never seen before, a vulnerability that John had not known possible. 

And as John looked it him, it was as though the bottom dropped out of his stomach, as though he began to spiral infinitely into an abyss he had not realised he had been staving off, because it was then that he realised that he loved him.

And how could he not? The pale laugh lines etched into Sherlock’s face, middle-aged now, though John could not believe it, spoke to happier times than John had known with anyone else. The aching tenderness with which he planted a soft kiss on Rosie’s brow was paralleled by a soft ache in John’s own chest. Even the ridiculousness of showing a baby science experiments brought a rueful smile to his lips that he could not shake. He loved Sherlock. 

Yet the panic continued to rise in his chest as his stomach sank lower and lower. If he loved Sherlock, what did that mean for Rosie? In his wildest dreams, dreams of Baker Street until their creaking bodies could no longer stand the London air, would he raise his daughter in the lifestyle of a detective? Would her uncle be the British government? Would she feel her father had abandoned her mother – would she think of her mother at all? Or would she resent her father – her other father – for taking her place?

Yet John knew that these were not the questions that were really bothering him. If John’s military training had taught him one thing, it was that he could muddle through pretty much anything. He could make that work. But he could not make it work without Sherlock. 

You’ll have to tell him. Even thinking those words sent a spasm of anguish through John’s chest. They put a timer on his time at Baker Street, a timer on his friendship with Sherlock. He was not fool enough to believe he could keep lying to Sherlock, besides which, he prized honesty above all things. To continue to live a friendship with Sherlock would be dishonest to Sherlock as well as John himself. It would devalue everything they had. Yet John was painfully aware that in telling Sherlock, it was either the beginning or the end of his time in 221B.


	18. Gifts

Sherlock was immersed in Gray’s Anatomy when he detected the change in John’s voice. John spoke to Sherlock frequently when he was reading, and Sherlock filtered much of it out. Often it was nonsense, conversation for the sake of it, and he suspected that John was grateful for Sherlock’s judicious choice of what to respond to. Theirs was a friendship that throve on a mutual, comfortable silence, after all. But this time John spoke, his voice was different somehow.

“Sherlock.”

He put the textbook down instantly. To someone who didn’t know him, there would have been nothing wrong with John; the change was so small as to be imperceptible. Yet the slight quaver to his tone, the tremor that had been absent these last weeks creeping back into his hand; these were signs Sherlock had been preparing himself for, signs he had been fearing when John first lost Mary. He had not expected them to appear now, just when John seemed to be recovering from his grief. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong – I just wanted to ask –“

John gulped slightly. Sherlock felt all the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. John Watson was never lost for words. Sherlock looked to his deep brown eyes, the eyes which he normally avoided because always caused that slight familiar pang in his chest, and met John’s gaze. John seemed to lose his nerve somehow, taking half a step back from Sherlock and breaking their eye contact.

“What do you want for Christmas?”

Sherlock knew it was not what he had wanted to say, but he did not know how to help him. Whatever set of complicated emotions John was feeling – Sherlock had never grieved like this. What did he want for Christmas? He wanted to be able to help. He wanted to extend a hand to John and to pull him out of the swirling hell of pain he saw him go through every day. He wanted John to stay with him in Baker Street, to never leave. He wanted to pull him into an embrace, to hold him tight, feel the heat of his breath and the warmth of his skin against Sherlock’s own. He wanted to be a father to Rosie, to live every second of her growing up. Every time he looked at John he was consumed by want, things he knew he could never have.

“Sherlock?”

He turned away quickly. “Nothing,” he muttered. Heat rose in his face, a flush of shame at his obviousness, his weakness in wearing his heart on his sleeve, coming so close to betraying his feelings. He suspected – hoped – that John was too preoccupied to notice. He did not dare to look back to check.

“Well I can’t get you nothing – just give me a clue, for God’s sake, there’s not much time before the shops all close.”

Sherlock gave a silent shrug, and he heard John sigh behind him.

“Right then.”

But John did not leave; there was no footstep indicating he was going about any kind of business. Sherlock merely sat, eyes averted, every sense in his body prickling with shame. 

It was several long moments before the silence was broken by a sigh cracked with emotion, more emotion than Sherlock could have imagined. He twisted his head around immediately but it was too late. John had turned away.


	19. Faith

John had never prayed before tonight.

He did not count the prayers he had learned by rote in his schooldays. He did not remember them now; they had never carried any power for him. Even when he was shot in Afghanistan, he had not reached out to a god. Please, let me live. He knew that his fate lay in the hands of the man who had held the gun; he had never deceived himself that there was someone watching over him. John Watson believed that life was hard, and that you made your own way.

He did not pray to a god tonight. He still did not believe, and did not think he ever would. Tonight he was speaking to Mary.

He did not quite know what to say to her. Realising that he loved Sherlock had winded him, had turned everything he had assumed about his life before upside down. Thinking back, he knew there was not a time in their acquaintance when he had not loved Sherlock. From their first meeting at Bart’s, when Sherlock had looked him up and down and with a curl of his lip deduced his life story, and then without much more introduction had whisked him on an adventure like John, army veteran, had never known. When John had killed for him, hours after they had first met. Recognising that threw everything he had known with Mary into relief. Had he known then? He supposed, deep down, he had. Had she?

Did you, Mary? Did you know?

He did not want Rosie to think that he had not loved her mother, because he had. The feelings he had for Mary would never evaporate; he knew that, but he also knew that he had found something bigger, a love that threatened to envelop him and upend everything he thought he knew about himself. He knew he had to tell Sherlock, but it didn’t feel right somehow without her permission. Saying it aloud still felt like an infidelity. He had loved them simultaneously, after all. How could she forgive him that?

Mary had liked Sherlock, he reminded himself. She had not come between them the way that every other girlfriend had; she had not competed for John’s attention. She had accepted that Sherlock was a part of John’s life and had become another. She had been sharp as a knife, able to respond to Sherlock’s barbed wit in a way that no one but Mycroft could. She had accompanied them on cases, hacked into networks with them, been a third chair at Baker Street even when John had long moved out. She and Sherlock had slotted together like siblings; yes, there had been friction, and one particularly low point which had marred their relationship, a moment which John could not forget. But if he were to move on, he thought, he could not think of anyone Mary would rather John moved on for.

Is that right, Mary? Could you be alright with this? 

And then, softer:

You are her mother, after all.

That was the question, as much as anything else. If John had to name his friends most cut out for fatherhood, until recently Sherlock’s name would have been a definite last on the list. He was a dangerous man, John knew, emotionally immature, highly strung, an addict – all of the things that would make John wince as a GP preparing someone for parenthood. But Sherlock was also kind and gentle, more loving towards Rosie than anyone else John knew. When John had been in trouble, Sherlock had dropped everything and risked his life to get him back. Granted, in many cases it was Sherlock who had got him into trouble in the first place, but the thought nevertheless was there. When Mary had died, Sherlock had opened his home and life to John and Rosie with nary a word of complaint. John knew without needing to think that Sherlock was the steadiest, most reliable person he knew, even if he was simultaneously the most volatile.

He hoped that Mary knew it too. He rolled over in bed, hearing the gentle whistle of Rosie’s breathing out and in. As he slipped into semi-consciousness, he sensed a soft breath of wind over his face in the still room. He hoped Mary was in agreement.


	20. Sweets

John took his chance after he had put Rosie to bed that Sunday night. He had calmed his nerves with a tot of whisky, attributing it to Christmas and hoping Sherlock had believed him. Sherlock declined the alcohol with a small smile, but that did not dissuade John. He knew he would need it. 

The room had taken on a pleasant haze in the minutes since John had drunk it. He was not drunk, merely in that pleasant between-state, where the world seemed to curve around his perspective. He felt warm and vaguely cosy, although it was a cold December evening.

“Sherlock.”  
“Mmm.” Sherlock looked up at him, having been scrolling through a site he definitely did not have legal access to. John smiled at his cleverness. Others thought it was irritating, as did he at times; tonight, however, John found it strangely endearing. 

“You’re a real brainbox, you know that?”

“I’m going to assume you meant that generously,” Sherlock said drily. “The last time somebody called me that, I narrowly avoided getting punched.”

John leant over Sherlock’s shoulder, gently resting on the arm of his chair. “You do wind people up.”

“My favourite hobby.”

“Apart from hacking into – what are you hacking into?”

“Hacked into. MI5. Their security is paltry, really. It’s a surprise London doesn’t fall victim to terror attacks more often.”

John stifled a smile. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Absolutely.”

And then, almost without meaning to, John leant over and planted a kiss on Sherlock’s head.

He was not quite sure why he had done it. He had planned to talk to him, to explain his confusion, the difficulty with Rosie and with Mary and to ask if Sherlock was willing to work through that with him. Hoping for everything and expecting nothing. Yet instead, alcohol numbing his sense of propriety, he had planted his lips within Sherlock’s dark curls. The hair was softer than he had expected; his surprise revealed to him how long he had unconsciously anticipated this moment. His lips only brushed the top of Sherlock’s skull, but he knew the gesture was unmistakeable. He felt Sherlock stiffen under his lips, and as he pulled away he saw that the other man had frozen, eyes fixed into the distance as though he did not dare to look at John. MI5 could have sounded all their alarms and Sherlock would not have noticed. 

John felt a lump form in his throat. He had made a terrible error. He had not wanted it to be this way. He had wanted to talk to Sherlock properly, as an adult, to explain his feelings and if necessary apologise for them, to offer Sherlock a fair choice. And instead of offering Sherlock a chance to respond to him, John had floored him, crossed lines that weren’t meant to be crossed. He stepped back, the room swaying around him. Perhaps he had drunk more than he thought. He suspected, however, that the nausea rising in his system had nothing to do with the alcohol. Mumbling incoherently, he excused himself. Sherlock did not speak a word as he went.


	21. Darkness

Sherlock had frozen.

Why had he frozen? Was this not what he had wanted for so long? Countless nights he had lain awake in bed consumed by longing, imagining John’s soft caresses. And then, last night, John had kissed him – and Sherlock had not known what to do.

It was not even a kiss. John had placed his lips to Sherlock’s head in the way a parent would, maybe an older brother if they were not as touch-averse as Mycroft. Sherlock had seen him perform the same action on Harry the few times they had seen her. It was not even a kiss, he told himself. John was drunk – he did not usually express emotion. Sherlock knew enough about his parents to suspect they had stunted his emotional development. So at Christmas he tried to thank Sherlock and did not have the words – and did that.

And yet. The problem with kisses was they leant themselves to hope. Sherlock could still feel the patch of skin John’s lips had brushed, lit up electric by his touch. He ran his fingers through his hair, lingering over that special space. He could not go on like this, he knew, longing after John, averting his gaze every time John looked his way. John’s kiss had been casual, brotherly; it drove home the imbalance in their relationship. He could not live with a man whose every glance he longed for, whose every touch sent unrequited sparks through him. Rosie could not grow up with a man who had ulterior designs on her father. Sherlock knew all of this, but last night had brought it into focus somehow. John’s carelessness with his affection was like a knife in Sherlock’s gut.

And yet.

The little sleep he had managed to get the previous night had been filled with forbidden thoughts, thoughts of what could be. He had imagined Rosie growing up and never leaving Baker Street. He had imagined the years passing like the seasons, and John remaining in his chair beside the fire, opposite Sherlock, as their future stretched on into eternity. He imagined John’s soft embrace, kissing his head once again and then kissing him more, with all the tenderness he felt for him. The tenderness he had always felt for him. It was both a curse and a blessing that John was not a more observant man.

Sherlock could hear John padding around the flat, attending to Rosie’s cries. It was before seven, as it normally was when they rose. This morning, however, he put off getting out of bed a little longer. He did not think he could look at John without imagining the previous night, speak to him without the note of his desires creeping into his voice. Especially not now he knew that this arrangement could not go on.

Unless.

But he did not let himself think about unless. Ever since 2010, unless had been the unthinkable. It was madness to think otherwise now.

He lay in bed a few moments longer, listening to John’s faint movements. For another few moments, however, he would bask in the moment that he knew would vanish the moment he arose.


	22. Friends and Family

The previous day, Sherlock had found excuse after excuse to avoid more than functional conversation with John. John did not blame him. Sherlock had not mentioned the kiss, a fact for which John was grateful. 

His drunken actions had complicated his plan of action. A confession and a proposition would now turn into a confession and an apology. But Sherlock was the most observant man in Britain, if not further afield; it would be an insult to act as though Sherlock had not apprehended his intentions. Better to be honest and part amicably. It had been nice while it lasted.

John had woken determined to explain himself to Sherlock, but he had forgotten that today they had guests. Sherlock had launched into the preparation of the meal and drinks with more gusto than usual, bustling around in a manner that was incredibly like his mother, but also conveniently meant that he could not be stopped in conversation. Before John knew it, their guests were upon them: Sherlock’s parents, Harry, Clara, Molly, Greg, Mrs. Hudson, Mike and even Mycroft, whose parents’ affectionate terming of him ‘Myc’ was causing much confusion with a slightly squiffy Stamford.

“To family!” Stamford was shouting, holding out his glass to clink with a slightly mortified Molly Hooper. Others were joining in with greater brio. “To friendship! To love! To many more years of Christmases and New Years spent with the ones we love!”

John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s on the other side of the room as Stamford spoke. Sherlock broke the eye contact as quickly as John had made it, and John felt something shatter in his heart. To love, indeed. There would be no more Christmases like this, he felt sure. He gave Rosie a rub as she hiccoughed on the warm milk that John had infused with cinnamon for her. Her first Christmas. He should not be so melancholy, but he could not help it.

He turned away from Sherlock and found Molly Hooper at his elbow. She had escaped from Stamford, it seemed. “John – it’s been ages.”

It had, he supposed. He nodded agreement. “You doing alright?”

“Fine.” She nodded over to Sherlock. “His nibs seems pretty miserable. You can’t cheer him up?”

A lump rose in John’s throat, and he simply shook his head, not trusting himself to speak all of a sudden. He turned quickly to attend to Rosie, hoping Molly would not notice his emotion.

“He doesn’t want you to leave, you know. I don’t want to get involved – I know this flat is pretty small for three, and Rosie will be needing her own room before you know it – but don’t underestimate how much he cares for you, John. Go easy on him. It’s not an easy Christmas for him.”

John looked up from Rosie to thank Molly, but found himself staring past her into the eyes of Mummy Holmes. She had heard every word Molly said, he was certain of it. Unlike her son, she did not look away when John clocked her. Instead, she held his gaze softly but steadily, her eyes a deeper shade of teal than her son’s but still echoing the same vulnerable pain John had spotted in Sherlock’s not so long ago. She nodded tacitly, as though to affirm all that Molly had said. John felt his stomach sink a little further. It felt so unfair, somehow, to have Sherlock’s affection for him doubly confirmed just when it was not mere affection that he wanted. 

“John?”

Molly was looking at him, concerned. John broke the gaze he was holding with Sherlock’s mother and turned back to her. “Thank you, Molly. I’ll try to look out for him.”

When he looked back to Mummy Holmes, she had integrated back into the party, as though it had never happened.


	23. Love

Sherlock waited until John had put Rosie to bed before he spoke to him. He could not do it with Rosie in the room. She raised too many emotions in him – everything in her screamed of the future he dreamed of, the future he could never have. It would be easier just with John.

He braced himself for the moment. After five long years, he could not believe he was finally saying it. Through those years, the dormancy of these feelings had become the only certainty in his volatile existence. There was a strange nostalgia in letting them go after all this time.

“Sherlock –“

“No.”

John seemed taken aback by Sherlock’s abruptness – Sherlock was too, come to that, but he knew now that it was now or never.

“There’s something I need to say.”

John’s breathing quickened; he wetted his lips, and Sherlock saw the nervousness in the tautness of his jaw. Perhaps he had been more obvious than he thought – perhaps John had seen through him a long time ago. But he had begun, and God help him he was going to finish.

“John – ever since I met you – life has been… different. Um…” He wasn’t explaining this very well – he was never normally lost for words, and was struggling with the new experience. “John – when you kissed my head, last night –“

“About that –“ John cut in, turning scarlet in the dim firelight. “It wasn’t – I didn’t mean to offend you –“

“No. I liked it.” He saw the breath catch in John’s throat, could feel himself flushing a deep beetroot. “And that’s the problem, I think. I liked it and I like you – the way I’ve always liked you. And I thought we could make it work – I thought I could live with you, like we did before. But last night, I realised – it’s unfair. It’s unfair on you – and it’s totally unfair on me.” He took a deep breath. “I’m in love with you, John, and I have been since we met.”

He had not realised he had been looking at a spot just past John’s head until he finished speaking. He looked back towards John and realised his eyes were swimming with tears, the same tears that Sherlock was blinking back in his own eyes. It felt like several years before John finally spoke.

“God – I love you too, you mad bastard, I really do.”

And suddenly John was pulling him into his arms, into a deep kiss, the most passionate Sherlock had ever experienced. They kissed fiercely and softly, with the ardour of all the lost years and the tenderness of the soft glow of the fire behind them. Sherlock could not have said how long the kiss lasted, for seconds or minutes or longer. When they finally pulled apart, he gazed down into John’s deep brown eyes.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited for this?”

John nodded, and Sherlock knew he really did. John nuzzled his face into Sherlock’s chest and they held each other close. Tomorrow was the start of a new life, but for now, they were together.


	24. Merry Christmas

Their first Christmas together was like no Christmas Sherlock or John had experienced.

It was not like that Christmas at Baker Street, with Irene Adler, when John had been brimming over with jealousy and Sherlock had played the violin for hours into the night, unable to articulate his pain.

It was not like the following Christmas at Sherlock’s parents, when Mary had been there, barely on speaking terms with John, and he and Sherlock had hardly known what to say to one another.

It was hard to believe that a year had passed. 

This Christmas was their Christmas, theirs alone to share. And Rosie, of course. Rosie did not seem to notice the difference in the way her fathers behaved around each other. Perhaps she had always sensed their love, a primal infantile understanding that both of them wished they had a long time ago. Nevertheless, they knew now.  
Rosie would not remember her mother. Both of them knew that, and both of them would make sure Mary was remembered. But going forward, no matter what else happened in their crazy life, she had two fathers who loved her more than anything. Except, perhaps, each other.


End file.
